According to ClinicalTrials.gov, device trials have increased 94 percent from 2012 to 2017. The medical device contract research organization (CRO) market is expected to continue growing at 11.5 percent per year; at this rate, the market could reach nearly $13 billion by 2033.

Latin America has seen an explosive growth in medical clinical trials. According to ClinicalTrials.gov, out of the 35,780 global medical device trials conducted since 2000, 1,219 of them (or 3.4 percent) were registered in Latin America.

The same ClinicalTrials.gov data reveals that from 2000 to 2010, there were 255 medical device clinical trials in Latin America; there were 891 from 2011 to 2017 — an impressive 249 percent growth.

Libella Gene Therapeutics —a US-based company— recently chose Colombia to conduct a phase I clinical trial that could represent a breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using gene therapy. The approval of a gene therapy trial in Colombia takes 30-45 days from the date of submission to an ethics committee. This time may be shorter or longer depending on how fast the ethics committee at the health institution (aka research center) evaluates the study documents. This positions Colombia as one of the countries with the fastest approval time (and lowest cost) in Latin America for gene therapy research.